2014-06-03

Reading the biography of a certain historical character (Hristo Zarezankov / Христо Зарезанков) at a Macedonian web site, I was a bit intrigued by his being introduced as a "Macedonian revolutionary, Sandinista, and anarcho-socialist" (македонски револуционер, сандинист и анархосоцијалист). Considering the character's years of life (1890–1938), political inclinations, and, overall, his quite eventful life, one could certainly imagine Mr. Zarezankov sailing to Central America and joining the fighters of Augusto César Sandino - or maybe trying to follow the General's anti-imperialist ideas in the Balkans.

It turns out, however, that, in Macedonian at least, сандинист (Sandinist[a]) is not an uncommon typo for санданист (Sandanist[a]).
(In English, of course, people are prone to misspell the other way around).

Like the Sandinistas, the Sandanists, too, were named after an assassinated charismatic leader, Jane Sandanski, fighting against the oppression by a great power (in his case, the Ottomans). I won't try to summarize here the complexities and controversies of his politics, but the career of the Pirinskiot Tsar ("The Czar of the Pirin") is a good illustration of the concept of "Balkanization". After Macedonia was liberated from the Turks in 1912 and divided by the liberator countries (who had to go to war between each other to accomplish the said division) in 1913, Sandanski was assassinated -- supposedly, with a tacit (covert) approval of the Bulgarian Czar Ferdinand, who then sent a wreath to his funeral.